Cultivating Devotion over Perfection

One of my best practices for overcoming my perfectionist tendencies is to cultivate a mindset of devotion.

For me, this means remembering that creativity, at its core, is about a commitment I’m making to myself and to my process of *becoming a person who creates consistently*, no matter the outcome.

So rather than getting stuck on one small part, trying to make my creations perfect, or obsessing over merits and metrics, I remember I’m *creating a body of work*. 

And a body of work requires me to keep moving, keep trying, and keep creating – in a spirit of devotion.

This gets me in a headspace of remembering that creativity is an ongoing, unfolding practice of becoming and stepping into stretchy identities (writer, artist, coach, etc.) – so if I’m creating and moving forward, this means I’m already succeeding and meeting my goals.

So when I put something out into the world and it falls flat or when I try something new and I fail or when I feel like my creative magic has disappeared, I return to this question: what am I most devoted to?  What am I trying to create for myself at the deepest level?  These questions help me find my way back to something good and true for me.

My own commitment is to live an out-loud, alive, creative life.  What’s yours?  And how it that vision guiding your life, process, and day-to-day?

Our Right to Imperfection

I believe we all have the right to make mistakes. Not just that we have made mistakes and will make them again, but that we have the right to make them. We have the right to not be perfect.

It’s a common abusive tactic (as I’ve seen via my DV advocacy work) to blame victims for their abuse by pointing out their mistakes as the reason for that abuse. I’ve spoken with lots of survivors who take ownership of what isn’t theirs (like responsibility for the abuse) because they’ve internalized this idea that mistakes warrant punishment, and that they’re only true, legitimate victims if they’re perfect and faultless. They talk about how they started an argument, stirred up drama, cheated, or fucked up something important – as if any of that was justification for violence.

Abusers demand perfection from their victims, but at the same time, they secretly want failure – because the mistakes are what give them justification (in their minds) for their abusive behavior. Their victim’s imperfections are a way to maintain power and control.

And one of the reasons this works so well as an abusive tactic is because of the ways our culture demands perfection from victims of abuse and violence (especially if the victim has a marginalized identity) – and demands perfection in general and punishes and shames mistakes, failures, and imperfections, rather than engaging them in a meaningful, productive, and life-affirming way.

We can take responsibility for our mistakes and do a deep accounting of behavior we regret without making that mean something about our worthiness and deservedness; we can apologize, change, and move forward without punishing ourselves, submitting to another’s authority, or subjecting ourselves to harm.

Our mistakes ask things of us and invite us into processes of reconciliation, learning, and growing, but our mistakes never strip us of our human sovereignty and should never be used as justification for harm or abuse.

When I remember I have the right to make mistakes, I feel freer to try, risk, and live big. I feel more grace toward myself and others, and more understanding and compassion around what we’re all trying to do and become in messy and imperfect circumstances.

Empty Spaces and Organic Progress

One of the things I continue to work through in my own life is my relationship with productivity and action.

I have all sorts of embedded stories around the levels of productive action I “should” be taking to be a successful and okay human - remnants from all those years as a student with perfectionist tendencies and neurotic habits, which took hold easily enough in a constant stream of looming deadlines and amorphous tasks, like research, reading, and studying, that could be extended into perpetuity because they had no clear beginning, middle, or end. Empty time was wasted time because there was never enough of it.

Life is different now, but even though I’m more or less in recovery around my hyperproductive leanings, I sometimes still catch myself believing that the only way to get what I want is by doing stuff, pretty much always, or that the only way to feel okay is to be in energies of movement and activation all the time, even when I know it would be better to let go and relax.

One of the things that has since helped me change and heal is reconnecting with my embodied self and remembering that I am an organic creature, not the disembodied machine that capitalism tries to make of me.

I remember the natural world. I think of a garden. There’s action that needs to happen: planting, tending, harvesting. And in between: a whole lot of empty space for mysterious processes of growth, alchemy, and creation that make happen what is far beyond my power.

A relentless stream of action and force will kill any life form. And it is not the way I want to live.

Nature needs empty spaces of unfoldment, and so do we - often more than feels comfortable and okay, given our cultural inheritance.

Just like the plants and the seasons, we need time and space for the magic to do its work on and in us - to let go and surrender to what we have no say in managing or controlling.

So I try to remember that it is not all up to me. I have my part to play, and my action matters, but so does my rest and my participation in emptiness and stillness. And beyond and within me, there is a whole web of being and existence that carries me along too.